


Motion Picture

by ABeckoningCat



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABeckoningCat/pseuds/ABeckoningCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story suggests an alternate course of events following the end of Aliens.</p><p>The Sulaco's course eventually led Ripley, Hicks, Newt and Bishop to Saratoga Station, where Bishop was repaired.  Before The Company could be alerted to their whereabouts, the three of them bought their way anonymously on to a massive, deep-space mining ship, the DSV Delimeter, whose ultimate destination is Earth.</p><p>It will be a journey of many months, and in the mean time they have to make the best of it.</p><p>Fortunately, the ship's small onboard school has a movie night to make things a little more bearable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Motion Picture

Newt had been generally content to walk on her own until her request for a puppy was summarily declined.

The official response was actually, “We’ll see,” but she explained to Bishop that this always meant no.

“Always?”  He found this information confounding.

“Always.”

Since then, even when the crowded corridors of the Delimeter didn’t demand she be attached to someone’s hand for safety, she was still firmly attached to someone’s hand.

Usually Bishop’s.

Usually leading him around like a puppy.

The android didn’t seem to mind, even after Ripley explained he was being used as some sort of pacifying surrogate, but probably because the girl made good company.  She never minded his questions, and was always frank and unhesitating with her own.  Furthermore, she always gave the most direct and unflinching answers.  He found her an easy companion.

It was just as well, Ripley decided; Newt was statistically safer in Bishop’s company than either hers or Hicks’s, and the android would have given his life up for her just as readily.  Unfortunately, it also came with the nagging sense that the two were not just keeping one another company, but in cahoots somehow.

“You’re sure you don’t mind taking her?”

Bishop glanced back from the tiny kitchenette sink, rinsing the coffee carafe of the last of its caffeinated lifeblood.  Hicks had already picked up his toolkit and wormed out of the cabin with a protein bar clenched in his teeth, but Ripley kept checking and rechecking the clasp of her watch, searching for reasons to be late to her shift.

“It’s fine, really.”  He smiled quickly.  “It will be fun.”

“I think you’re overestimating how entertaining a room full of six year olds can actually be.”

The cabin door opened with a chirp and hiss, Newt already fighting out of her backpack as she squeezed through the gap.  She was glad to see them, and gladder still for a little help getting out of her pack.

“Ripley, you’re home!”

“I am, but only for a few minutes.”  She knelt to untangle her from the straps, cupping her small shoulders as she kissed her forehead.  “How was school?”

“Fine.”

“Learn anything good?”

“No.”

“Sounds like another exciting and rewarding day, then.”

Newt had no patience for small talk, leastwise when she had a big evening planned.  She looked Ripley seriously up and down, staring especially hard at the logo embroidered on her jumpsuit pocket.  Her brows narrowed inward.

“Do you have to work again?”

It was a simple question, but it cut deep.  All the more because Newt wasn’t the first little girl who had to ask that question.

“Yes, Newt, I’m sorry.  Someone called in sick, so I need to fill in.”  She combed her hair back with the curl of her fingers, tucking it behind one ear.  “I know tonight is Movie Night… do you mind going with Bishop, instead?”  She sweetened the question with a small smile. “You and I can do something on my day off.”

“I guess.”  Newt looked past Ripley’s shoulder, brightening as Bishop carried Casey to her.  She reached out for the doll head eagerly.  “Casey!”

“She was very well behaved,” Bishop reassured, then lowered to one knee to join them.  “I won’t be hurt if you’d rather wait for Ripley to take you to the movie.”

“No, I want to go.”  She stroked Casey’s hair almost aggressively, a sure sign she was thinking hard.  She looked to Ripley, then to Bishop, digging in her heels as if for a firmer bargaining position.  “But can I have pizza for dinner?”

Ripley stood, scrubbing a palm over the girl’s head.  Yeah, she was fine.

“You’ll have to work that out with Bishop.”

“I think we can arrange that,” he agreed.  “We’ll stop by the commissary on the way there.”

Satisfied with this arrangement, Newt switched Casey to one hand, reaching out to snag two of Bishop’s fingers in her fist.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Ripley bent for own bag, working the straps over her shoulders.

“Well, that was easy.”  A pause at the door as she glanced back, hiding a smirk.  “You’re sure you’ll be alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” Newt declared.

“I was talking to Bishop.”

He blinked, expression wide open in confusion.

“Is there some reason I should be worried?”

She clenched at the straps, giving the bag a slight toss on her back to adjust its weight.

“How much time have you actually spent around small children?”

His eyes roved the floor, quickly calculating before he looked up again.

“Excluding Newt?”

“Excluding Newt.”

“Well… none.”  He licked his lips in sudden, hopeful amendment.  “But I’ve spent a lot of time around marines.”

“That’s a decent start,” she mused, and hit the door release with the side of one fist.  “Have fun, you two.”

And to Bishop especially, “Good luck.”

 

* * *

  
Having little to no experience with flesh-and-blood children meant that Bishop sometimes required almost as much hand-holding as Newt did.

She was more than just a very small, serious adult.  There were complexities to her needs that required special attention to detail, and the ability to foresee problems and solve them dynamically.  Children were oddly scientific, in that way.

After pizza in the commissary, and an animated debate about the pros and cons of giving her a second carton of chocolate milk (which he lost), Bishop found his two forefingers once again in the clasp of her fist as she pulled him along.

“Come on.  We’ll be late.”

“Newt,” he asked, following dutifully.  “Do your friends know I’m an artificial person?”

“No.”

“Do you think we ought to tell them?”

She thought about that before craning a look up as they walked.  “Does it matter?”

“To some people it does.”

“Why?”

He struggled with that question himself, gently easing her out of the way of traffic as it grew thick in the corridor ahead.

“Some people… don’t like us.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.  I wish I did.  I guess they think we’re dangerous.”

Now she was piqued, maybe even a little excited.  He didn’t seem the menacing type, but the prospect of their soft-spoken android companion potentially going completely ballistic on someone was unexpectedly thrilling.

“Are you?”

“What?  No.”  He looked hurt.  “I would never hurt anyone.  Not willfully… not even by accident, I hope.”

Bishop paused outside the AV Room door as he assessed her disappointment.  “You don’t want me to hurt people, do you?”

“Well…”  Newt debated, serious.  “You should at least learn how to bite.”

He blinked, then thumbed the buzzer.  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

A slender woman in a pale blue jumper answered the door, looking first to Bishop, then to Newt before recognition set in.

“Rebecca, there you are!  We’re so glad you made it.”

“Her name is Newt,” Bishop corrected gently.  The woman fixed on him and squinted.

“I’m sorry, you are…?”

“He’s my artificial person,” Newt volunteered, flattening a hand to Bishop’s stomach.  I got this.  “He’s not dangerous.”

He had trouble finding exactly the right argument to this introduction, and flashed the woman a delicate, flinching smile.

“She… isn’t technically wrong.”  He offered a hand out.  “Most people just call me Bishop.”

“Bishop,” the woman repeated, but with trepidation.  She took his hand even more cautiously, and he felt the very slight torque of his wrist as she tried to turn it over for inspection.  She’d never seen an android before.  “Well, I...  I’m Mrs. Daughtry, one of Rebecca’s room mothers.  You’re welcome to come in and watch with the children, if you like.”

“Thank y--,” he startled as Newt gave his other hand a hard tug, dragging him past her and into the room.  “Thank you.  Actually, her name is Newt.”

Daughtry closed the door quietly after them before she turned to follow.

“Oh,  it’s class policy, we don’t allow the children to use nicknames.  Proper names only.”

Bishop looked at Newt, and Newt looked back, lips pressed thin.  Do you see the shit I have to deal with?

The room was already dimly lit, a crowd of perhaps twelve or thirteen children between the ages of five and seven gathered cross-legged on the floor.  The AV Room was typically reserved for staff training sessions and small multimedia presentations, but the ship’s on-board day school had been granted permission to use it for monthly movie nights, as well.  It was as low-tech as possible, little more than a pull-down screen and a cassette projector on a wheeled cart, but for children living adrift from mining station to mining station it was a much-beloved respite.

The childrens’ heads turned at their entrance, gazes lingering at the curious figure standing alongside Newt.  Mothers occasionally came along to movie night, sometimes even with treats, but fathers were a rarity.  Even less so ones this old.

Bishop gave them all a hesitating smile, raising a timid hand.  “Hello.”

Newt addressed the room frankly, “This is Bishop.  He’s my artificial person.”

One of the boys stopped picking his nose long enough to ask, “What does that mean?”

“He’s a synthetic.”

The children stared blankly, some of them open-mouthed.  Newt looked up at Bishop, and he nodded at her in reluctant encouragement.  Go ahead, You can use The Word.

She faced them again.  “He’s a robot.”

Within seconds Bishop was surrounded by fascinated children, all of them palming at him, tugging on his fingers, asking questions that he could barely untangle from one another.

“I have a robot at home,” a girl declared.  “But he’s a lot smaller than you.  Where’s your remote control?”

“I… I don’t have one of those.”

“He’s voice activated,” said another, nodding wisely.

“Do you have any buttons?” a voice yelled from the back.

“No, I.  I don’t have any buttons.  I don’t work that way.”

“Are you super strong?  My Dad says robots are super strong.”

“I’m… I’m pretty strong?”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a scientist.”

They made various faces of disappointment.  Oh, science? Was that all?

“He does magic tricks too,” Newt defended, staunchly proud.  She made an enthusiastic stabbing motion with one fist.  “And he can do this thing with a knife--”

Bishop panicked, patting the air nervously with both hands. “I don’t think they really need to know about the knife--”

“Children,” Daughtry swept in to rescue him, shepherding the crowd back toward their places on the carpet.  “Why don’t we all sit down so we can get the movie started.  Maybe Mr. Bishop can answer some questions afterwards.”

Newt took his hand again, dragging him along to one back corner of the cross-legged assembly.  It took Bishop a bit more work to get into position than the children, his legs not quite meant to fold that way, but eventually he lowered comfortably.  Daughtry thumbed a button to pop the top-load lid of the projector, slipping a clunky cassette into the carriage.

“Newt picked out this month’s movie, so I hope you all enjoy it.  Everyone remember your manners -- stay seated, stay quiet, and if you need something, please raise your hand silently until I can get to you.”

Bishop made another awkward adjustment to the fold of his legs, trying to recall if the old set gave him this many problems.  He bent to whisper to Newt as she squirmed up against his side.

“What movie did you pick?”

“It’s called The Land That Time Forgot.”

He ran the title through his memory briefly, but without the benefit of having full network access, was a bit limited in his knowledge of children’s movies.

“What’s it about?”

She shrugged, ambivalent.  Movie night was less about the movie and more about the experience.

“I don’t know.  It had pictures of dinosaurs on the box.”

Daughtry hushed them, tapping a forefinger to her lips, and Bishop made an apologetic locking-my-mouth-and-throwing-away-the-key gesture as the overhead lights were dimmed.  The projector rattled on its cart before settling into a more restful hum, the backwash of light from the screen bathing them all in a pale, flickering glow.

 

* * *

 

Bishop’s innate cartoon movie knowledge may have been out of date, but his paleontological databases were exhaustive.

Scientifically speaking, this movie was an abomination.

A triceratops and a stegosaurus?  Playing together?  It took everything in him not to protest out loud that the children were being massively misinformed, and that those two species didn’t even exist in the same Mesozoic period.  When a small archaeopteryx with a Russian accent joined the party of wayfaring baby dinosaurs he had to put his head in his hands for a few moments.  It was too much.

The children, however, were slack-jawed in wonder.  They laughed at jokes that he didn’t quite get, and caught their collective breath at pitfalls he saw coming a mile away.  Only Newt was without overt affect, although every so often he felt her stiffen in surprise, or heard her bubbling with one of those helpless giggles that bared her top teeth against her bottom lip.

The movie was uniquely human in its appeal, but he sat through it dutifully.  The story was overly simple and easy to follow, a journey of small triumphs and disasters that that culminated in a climactic battle with a tyrannosaurus -- seriously with these geologic anachronisms -- chasing the protagonists into the remains of a fire-ravaged forest..

The band of baby dinosaurs scattered wildly on screen, the smallest of them running into the husk of a hollowed tree for safety.  Gasps all around.  The tyrannosaurus’s massive jaws descended to one end of the hollow, a close-up of tall, bared teeth.  The trapped triceratops held very still, eyes wide with fear, then scrambled in panic as the jaws began to snap, breaking the tree apart in great splinters, inches away from cleaving her in two.

Bishop realized suddenly that Newt was alone among the children in her silence, neither gasping nor straining forward in suspense.  When he looked at her, the whites of her eyes were great with frozen terror, her breath held in her chest.  One hand was clenched around his belt loop, knuckles white.

He looked at the screen again, the massive teeth glistening menacingly, filling the screen.

He unfolded to his knees, catching her against his chest as he stood.

“Come on.”

Newt attached to him with koala-like ferocity, arms around his neck, body tense.  He held her head to his shoulder with the spread of one hand, making sure Casey was accounted for before moving for the door.

Ms. Daughtry half-rose from her chair near the door, trying to look more concerned than suspicious.

“Leaving already?” she whispered.

He flinched with a polite smile.  “I’m going to take her home.”

“Is she alright?”

“It’s just a little too much, I think.”

She nodded, tucking a forefinger into one of Newt’s clenched fists, jogging it in place.

“I hope you feel better, Rebecca.”

He struck the door release with the side of one hand.

“Her name is Newt.”

Bishop was afraid the usual chaos of the public corridors would be overwhelming to her, but Newt took reassurance in the bright lights and the bustling bodies, the press of living people all around them.  She made no sound, neither comment nor whimper, but stared over his shoulder with catatonic intensity.  Her arms squeezed so tightly that he could feel the definition of each small muscle.

Bishop stayed silent as well.  In part because he could think of nothing to say, and in part because saccharine reassurances were not in his programming.  Keeping her safe, keeping her well and alive, were all things he understood, ends to which he could find the most direct means.  Platitudes would do her no good.

She buried her face against his neck as he carried her swiftly through the crowd.

Past the commissary and the ship’s small marketplace, the kiosks and public lounges filled with noise and smoke and people, then onto the lift for the slow descent into steerage.  The narrow corridors of the residential deck were quiet and seemingly deserted, the sound of holo-vids and dinner conversation muffled through the doors.  Newt relaxed a little more, adjusting her grip on him.

“We’re here,” he purred, supporting her with one arm as he fished out his keycard and swiped theminto the cabin.  Newt hung on until he lowered her carefully into the bottom bunk, withdrawing only to draw the little curtain she used for privacy.

He didn’t bother to brighten the room behind them, sliding his fingers along the inside of the berth until he found the switch for her small, domed nightlight.  It lit the alcove in weak yellow light, just enough to describe her huddle on the bed, knees to her chest and stroking Casey’s hair with aggressive, dry-eyed purpose.

Bishop ducked down, framed in the drape of the curtain as he perched on the bed’s edge.  One hand rubbed her arm softly, eyes searching and anxious.

“Are you alright?”

She nodded, jaw clenched.

“Are you sure?”

Another nod.

“I can… find Ripley or Hicks, if you w--”

Newt unfolded like a frog into a leap, crawling into the android’s lap.  She didn’t go for his neck this time, needing both hands free to worry at Casey’s hair, but Bishop drew her against him with both arms, resting his chin to the crown of her head.  For the first time he lamented his lack of a heartbeat to soothe her.

“Bishop,” she whispered.

“Yes?”

“What if they come back?  What if they find us?”

His lips parted, then pressed closed again.  She was very good at difficult questions.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “We’re working on that, though.  We’re thinking about it every day, and trying to plan ahead so that can’t happen.  Me especially.”

She thought on that, sitting back to search him for any hint she was being lied to.  If there was one thing she could count on, however, it was Bishop’s unflagging, if sometimes reluctant honesty.

“But what if?”

“If they come back,” he said.  “We’ll run.  And if we have to, we’ll fight.”

“You can’t fight them,” she was immovable on this point.  “You can’t.”

“We would have to try.”  He paused, uncomfortable, then said, “I would have to try.  I can’t speak for anyone else… frankly, I’d prefer if Ripley took you and went far away.”

“Why?  I thought you weren’t allowed to fight.”

“I can’t hurt people,” he said softly.  “I never said I can’t fight.  It’s in my primary programming… the things that make me me.  I want to help people.  To protect them.  I wouldn’t rest until you were safe.  All of you.  I couldn’t.”

His eyes lowered solemnly, and with one hand he reached up to comb her hair behind her ear.  He wasn’t sure if he got the gesture just right, but the ferreting fix of her eyes relaxed.

“I’ll always protect you,” he promised.  “It’s what I do.”

“Always?”

“As long as some part of me is still functioning.  Against them… against anything.”  He tugged one smooth blond lock between his fingertips.  “Even from anachronistic cartoon dinosaurs.”

“Anaaaa…?”

“Anachronistic.  It means… in the wrong time.  All those species of dinosaur were separated by millions of years.  The whole movie was wrong.”

“Is that why you kept sighing?”

“I did…?”

“The whole time.”

He hummed, averting his eyes.  “It was really upsetting.”

Newt relaxed slowly against him, the strokes applied to Casey’s hair far calmer than before.  She might not have been safe here, she might not have been safe anywhere, but there was reassurance that so many people were invested in her well-being.  Even Bishop, whose self-sacrificial nature had already earned him a special fondness and respect.

“Bishop?”

“Hm?”

“Can I take you with me to the next Show-and-Tell?”

“I don’t see why not.  So long as your teacher doesn’t mind.”

She squirmed into the warmth of his chest, content.

“Will you show them the knife trick?”

Bishop rested his chin atop her head again.

“We’ll see.”


End file.
